HAM'in About Radio Communication

I made a dumb assumption. A friend of a friend agreed to show me a new trail I’d never traveled before, and we kept the group small: Me in my Jeep, Russ in his Rubicon, and our fearless leader in his Sport.

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The trail wasn’t supposed to be incredibly tough, but it did cross through a rocky streambed loaded with some sizeable boulders. 3.0 out of 5, the guide book rated it.

Somewhere along the trail, we had to squeeze between two truck-sized boulders and make a sharp right turn. My narrow 10.5” tires left me with about 2” on both sides of the Jeep as I passed through. So I picked up my CB mic and called the chief. “Hey Dave, uh, will you give me a quick spot on my passenger side?”

“Hey, Mark” I heard Russ pipe in. “Dave doesn’t have a CB.”

“You’re kidding me right? He’s got that decked out Jeep and didn’t bother to spend another $70 for a CB?”

“Seriously, he doesn’t have one.”

“He’s your buddy. You get up here and give me a spot then.”

So, what did I learn? That’s right, not everyone has a radio. This got the JPFreek team thinking: Maybe others need a guide through the world of radios. I called the best guy that I know for the job: Andy Keels, an Electrical Engineer and a serious Jeep ‘Freek.”

Our conversation went like this:

JPF: Andy, radios for communication in Jeeps. Why should anyone bother with them?

AK: Well, would you like to get high-centered while you watch your buddies drive away? No way!

JPF: Good point. So, what are the options?

AK: Well, the most popular radio is a standard CB. An economical radio is FRS. And I like HAM radios.

About Mark Stephens

Contributing Editor, Tequila Taster: He's trying to find a way to get us to pay him for living on the beach in Mexico. Good luck buddy! Until then, he toils away at scribbling out adventure tales from the Southwest U.S. Mark's lived out of his Jeep TJ for several weeks while traveling along the backroads of Arizona and Mexico with his wife, Brooke. But he picked up writing and photography because the rock band wasn't quite working out.